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{
    "id": 980350,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/980350/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 268,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Farhiya",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13179,
        "legal_name": "Farhiya Ali Haji",
        "slug": "farhiya-ali-haji"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. Apart from contributing to this Bill, I just want to make a general observation. When Bills from the National Assembly come to our House, we expedite the process, but the same is not accorded to us. Some of the Bills that we passed when we first came to this House are still nowhere to be found. No one gives feedback on what happened to the Bills. People work hard to prepare Bills. It takes a lot of time to prepare Bills and make sure that they are sensible. However, when they go to the other House, we do not know what happens to them. I think something needs to be done by the leadership of this House with regard to this. Being a democratic country, the process of elections in Kenya should be very transparent and credible. I can see that there are different bodies picking different people to ensure that--- For example, Parliament is supposed to pick four. The other ones are the Public Service Commission (PSC), the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and the National Gender and Equality Commission (GNEC). However, what benchmark are we putting in place to ensure the credibility of the people who are picked by each of those institutions? We cannot have people who did not go through the right process in the first place. One of the things we should propose is a clear criterion of selecting even the person selected by each of these interest groups. This is to ensure that the correct people are picked. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, this country has suffered a lot in terms of post- election violence, people’s rights being infringed, people’s choices not being correctly determined, and a lot of other ills that surround elections. Now that we have an opportunity, if we do not correct these anomalies, we are setting ourselves up for another failure. There is nothing more painful than queuing to vote, and then one’s verdict does not count. Economies grow due to stability of the country. Any economy that has grown is as a result of either a dictatorship where people did not have any choice or there is a very clear democratic process where votes count. Right now we have a problem in terms of the election of new commissioners, because some of them resigned. This law does not provide for the replacement of those commissioners. If there are other laws that exist, why are we not using them to ensure that we replace the gaps that exist? This House needs to bring some amendments to correct some of those anomalies, so that we have a fair election process. In any leadership, the top determines what kind of governance we have, how we conduct ourselves, and how well the government of that country is being run. The taxpayers spend a lot of money paying these people. Are these people transparent and doing what they ought to do? The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}